THE CALVERTS
Chapter Three

April 19, 1912

John made his way slowly down a broad street lined with expensive houses. Mary and Nadia toddled along beside him, while Allegro darted about at the end of his leash, pausing to sniff at trees and lampposts and to bark at other dogs.

John consulted the address written on the twenty-dollar bill. According to what it said, the Anders’ home should be on this street. He walked on, ignoring the occasional stares and strange looks from passers-by. He didn’t look like a member of the upper class, and he wasn’t dressed like one of their servants. People eyed his ragged clothes suspiciously, as well as the two small children dressed in the garb of impoverished immigrants. One woman walking a toy poodle had been appalled when she had been forced to stop while the poodle and Allegro sniffed each other over, tails wagging nervously.

John finally came to the house listed on the bill, a large three-story brick structure with a wide green lawn and flower beds only beginning to bloom in the spring sunlight. Keeping Mary and Nadia at his side, he ordered Allegro closer to them and rang the bell.

A plump, gray-haired woman answered the door. John looked at her, remembering the picture that was in the locket, and knew that this had to be one of the servants, rather than Miriam’s mother.

She looked at the ragged group suspiciously. "May I help you?" she asked, holding the door as close to shut as she could.

"May I speak with Mr. or Mrs. Anders?" John inquired.

"Who may I say is calling?"

"My name is John Calvert. I’m here on behalf of their daughter Miriam."

"Mr. Anders isn’t home at present. I will see if Mrs. Anders will see you." She closed the door, leaving the group on the doorstep.

John sighed, wondering if he would even be able to speak to Mrs. Anders. Mary and Nadia toddled over to the door, examining the carved wood curiously, while Allegro scratched himself furiously, then settled down to groom himself.

The door opened suddenly, sending the toddlers scurrying back to him. The gray-haired woman had returned, accompanied by a striking woman in her forties.

John recognized her from the locket. "Mrs. Anders?" he asked, offering his hand.

She shook it tentatively. "Yes. My housekeeper says you have word about my daughter. Do come in."

John stepped inside the house. The inside was as elaborate as the outside, with a wide hall decorated with expensive tables and works of art leading to the other rooms of the house. He glimpsed a spiral staircase winding toward the second floor, and wondered what had possessed Miriam to leave this luxury behind.

He followed Mrs. Anders into the parlor, and sank down onto a stiff horsehair chair. He pulled the girls into his lap, while the puppy hid beneath the chair and stared at his new environs with wide eyes.

"I’m afraid we haven’t been properly introduced," Mrs. Anders began. "I’m Elizabeth Anders, Miriam’s mother."

"I’m John Calvert, Miriam’s...husband." He stopped, suddenly wondering if Miriam had told her parents that she had been married.

"Husband?" she began, but was interrupted by Mary.

"I Mary," the little girl told her, beaming. "This is Daddy, and Nada, and Egro." She struggled to get down from John’s lap, but he held her tight.

"Stay here, Mary," he told her warningly. "And don’t interrupt. It isn’t polite."

Mary looked sullen for a moment before Elizabeth turned to her. "I’m pleased to meet you, Mary," she told the child, shaking her hand. "And..."

"Nadia," John told her, as Elizabeth looked at the dark-haired girl in his lap. "She’s my niece."

"Welcome Mary, Nadia," Elizabeth told them pleasantly, before returning her attention to John. "You say you’re Miriam’s husband?"

"Yes. I...suppose she didn’t tell you."

"No, she didn’t. When were you married?"

"In January. In London."

Elizabeth sighed. "She probably thought her father and I would try to annul the marriage."

"Could you have done that, from so far away?"

"I have no idea," she confessed, "and I wouldn’t be inclined to do so anyway, though her father might. Miriam has always been headstrong, making her own decisions. That was why we sent her to Europe--we knew she could take care of herself."

"She said something about a scandal being the reason you sent her overseas."

"Yes. She...rejected a suitor publicly, and none too diplomatically, I’m afraid."

"Caledon Hockley."

"Yes."

John suppressed a smile, thinking that the arrogant suitor that Miriam had so disliked was probably growing used to rejection by now, seeing that his fiancée, Rose DeWitt Bukater--Rose Dawson, he reminded himself, wondering why she had changed her name--had abandoned him for life on the streets.

"Where is Miriam?" Elizabeth asked suddenly.

John tensed. He had been dreading this question. "She...she’s dead, Mrs. Anders. We were on the Titanic, and she didn’t get to a lifeboat, and froze to death in the water."

"What?" Elizabeth’s face had gone pale. "She wasn’t on the Titanic. James and I--James is her father--we checked the lists of both survivors and victims very carefully. Miriam Anders wasn’t there."

"She was traveling under her married name--Miriam Calvert," John told her softly, his heart clenching at the shock on Elizabeth’s face. He had been so wrapped up in his own grief over Miriam’s death that he hadn’t stopped to think about what her family would feel.

Elizabeth sat quietly for a moment, methodically shredding the lace cuffs on her dress, before rising abruptly. "Excuse me," she told him, walking from the room.

She returned a moment later with a newspaper containing the lists of Titanic passengers. Opening it, she turned to the list of first class victims.

"She isn’t here," she told him after a moment. "I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but..."

"She was in steerage," John told her. He had seen her looking at the first class victims, and knew that Miriam would not be among them.

"Steerage?" Elizabeth looked shocked for a moment, but then turned to another list, searching it. Miriam Calvert was near the bottom of the list of steerage victims. "My God..."

"We were traveling in steerage because she only had enough money for one first class ticket, and she refused to leave us behind, or ride in first class while we rode in steerage." He reached into his pocket, removing the locket, the coin, and the note written on the twenty-dollar bill. "She wanted these things to be returned to you."

Shakily, Elizabeth took the items, opening the locket to see the picture. Closing it again, she clutched the items tightly in her hand, her eyes filling with tears. "Miriam..." she whispered brokenly. "My little girl..." She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress, dabbing at her eyes.

"Do...do you have other children?" John asked her.

She shook her head. "No. Miriam was the only one." She wiped her eyes, her tears flowing faster. "I had hoped that she would find a husband and come back here, settle down, and raise a few children."

John shook his head, doubting that he was the kind of husband the Anders had had in mind for their daughter, but Elizabeth’s next words surprised him.

"She must have loved you very much. Miriam wasn’t the kind of girl who would get married just for appearances. That was why we had such a hard time finding a suitor for her. She was always looking for something special in a husband. If only she hadn’t sailed on the Titanic..."

John blinked his eyes rapidly, holding back tears. If they hadn’t sailed on Titanic, Miriam would be alive and at his side, looking forward to the birth of their first child. He almost told Elizabeth that Miriam had been with child when she had died, but held his tongue, knowing that it would only cause her more sorrow.

Elizabeth sniffed and dried her eyes. "These...these children..."

"Mary is my daughter, from my first marriage," John explained. "And Nadia is my niece, the daughter of my...half-sister, though I’m raising her now, as her father died some time ago and her mother perished on the Titanic."

Elizabeth looked at the restless toddlers. "Mary is Miriam’s step-daughter, then?"

John nodded.

"And Nadia is being raised as Mary’s sister?"

"Yes."

"Then, if it would not trouble you too much, I would like to claim them as my granddaughters. They’re the closest to grandchildren that I will ever have."

John was surprised, but only nodded. "Of course."

The cook appeared in the doorway, carrying a tray of tea, sandwiches, and cookies. Elizabeth thanked her, then glanced at the fidgeting children.

"Would you like to go to the kitchen for a snack?" she asked them.

Mary brightened, but Nadia only stared at her uncomprehendingly.

"Nadia doesn’t speak English yet," John explained. "Her father was Arab, and her family lived in Turkey." He wasn’t actually sure where Nadia was from, but it seemed as good an explanation as any.

"Oh, I see," Elizabeth said, looking just slightly dubious. "Millie, will you take them back to the kitchen with you? Give them some cookies and milk."

Millie led the two youngsters from the parlor, the puppy following in their wake, his leash dragging behind him.

"Give Eggroll something to eat, too," Elizabeth added, watching the dog scurry after them.

"Allegro," John corrected her.

"What?"

"The puppy’s name is Allegro. Mary can’t quite pronounce it."

"Oh." She offered him the tray.

John helped himself to a couple of small sandwiches and some cookies, as well as a cup of tea. Like many Englishmen, he appreciated the beverage.

"How did you and Miriam meet?" Elizabeth asked him, sipping delicately from her cup.

"I was working as a clerk at a small shop in London, and Miriam ran inside, trying to hide from the Bobbies."

"The Bobbies?"

"Miriam was a...suffragette."

"Yes, but was has that to do with it?"

"In London, there have been some violent confrontations between suffragettes and the police. Apparently she took part in one of these demonstrations that got out of hand, and ran when things got out of control."

"Did she escape the Bobbies?"

"Almost."

"Almost?"

"One of them saw her slip into the shop, and found her hiding under the counter." He smiled, remembering the incident. "She tried to fight him off with a feather duster."

Elizabeth put her hand over her eyes, shaking her head. "Yes, that sounds like something my daughter would do. Was she arrested?"

John nodded. "She was in jail for a week, but then they let her out, because there was no evidence that she did anything more than disturb the peace. I take it she never told you about this?"

"No, she didn’t. Although, given that her reputation was already on shaky ground because of the way she rejected Mr. Hockley, I’m not surprised that she chose to keep her troubles to herself."

"We met again after she was released from jail. She came by the shop to thank me for trying to hide her."

"Did you get into trouble over her actions?"

He shook his head. "No. They completed overlooked me."

"Sometimes, I’m sorry to say, Miriam would act before she thought about it."

"You’re right, she would, but she often showed good sense as well." He paused. "We went to dinner together that night, and she met my daughter, Mary, and my first mother-in-law, Isabel, a few days later. Mary took to her right away, though my mother-in-law was suspicious of her. She eventually came around--Miriam could be friendly to anyone--and I proposed to her in December. We were married in January."

"What of your first wife?"

"My first wife, Jana, died when Mary was a baby. She got pneumonia during one of London’s damp winters and died within a week."

"I’m sorry to hear that."

"Thank you. She had been gone almost two years when I married Miriam."

Elizabeth shook her head. "If only Miriam had told us she had gotten married, we would have sent enough money for all of you to ride first class. She might have survived if she had been in first class. Almost all of the first class women survived." She nibbled on a sandwich. "How did you survive? So many of the steerage men died..."

"Miriam and I both wound up in the water when the ship went down. Miriam had almost gotten into a lifeboat, but then we realized that Mary was missing. We split up to look for her, and Miriam found her and managed to get her into a boat, but wasn’t able to get into the boat herself. She said that she put her lifebelt on Mary and threw her in the direction of a lifeboat, where someone picked her up from the water. Miriam, of course, couldn’t swim, and she had given her lifebelt to Mary."

Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears again. "She gave up her own chance to survive for your little girl. What a good mother she would have been."

John nodded sadly. Yes, Miriam had been a good mother to Mary. If only she and her child had survived...

Pushing the thoughts aside, he continued his story. "We found each other again, and she told me what had happened to Mary. We were trying to climb to the stern as the ship tilted, but someone fell against us, sending us down the deck. Miriam landed on some railings, and I slid down almost to the water before I stopped myself. Miriam climbed to the outside of the ship, so no one would fall on her. Right about that time, the ship split in two."

"It split in half? The papers said it went down in one piece."

John shook his head. "No, I assure you, it split. I tumbled into the water--it had split right about where I was--and Miriam lost her hold on the railing and fell into the sea. I knew that she couldn’t swim, and I saw her struggling--her heavy dress was pulling her down--so I dove down after her, and brought her back to the surface. We saw a deck chair, and I swam to it, with Miriam holding on to me, and we waited as the ship finally sank. I was hoping that the boats would come back to search for survivors, but only one did, and by that time it was too late for almost everyone, including Miriam. I tried to get them to take her into the boat, but she was already gone. The last I saw of her was her blonde hair as she sank into the water, pulled down by her wool dress."

Elizabeth was crying again, twisting her handkerchief in her hands. "My poor Miriam...to die in such a horrible way...she was afraid of deep water, you know."

"Yes, she told me about that. About how she almost drowned in the fishpond as a small child. She said that was why she never learned to swim."

Elizabeth nodded. "Yes. She was afraid of deep water--especially cold, deep water. I suppose that she was right to fear it. You say she sank?"

"Yes."

"We won’t be able to find her body, then, but I will still see about having a memorial to her raised in the cemetery. She deserves that much."

"Mrs. Anders, if there is anything I can do to help..."

"Thank you, John." She paused. "I think Miriam chose wisely when she married you. Although Miriam is gone, I am proud to have you for a son-in-law." She set her teacup aside. "I hope that you and your children will stay for dinner tonight. James, too, was eager to see Miriam settled. I think he will want to meet you."

Chapter Four
Stories